Speculations in the State over transfer of district police heads running rife for the past few months have ended on Thursday with the State Government declaring the list of the transferred police officers. The re-jig is considered significant with the Vidhan Sabha election drawing near and inter-community tension simmering across the State.
In order to improve quality of police administration, the State Government has transferred as many as 17 IPSs on Thursday. The State has not seen such a large-scale police reshuffle involving the IPSs in the recent years, said observers.
Significantly, Sadanand Shankar Rao Date has been made SSP of Dehradun. He was earlier posted at police headquarters as an Assistant IG. Kewal Khurana who was deputed as SP (crime research department) at Haldwani, headquarters, has been made SSP Udham Singh Nagar. Haridwar SSP Sweety Aggarwal has been made Nainital SSP while Senthil Akdai Krishna Raj S who was SSP Nainital has been made Haridwar SSP. SSP/DIG Pushpak Jyoti has been transferred from Dehradun district to police headquarters as DIG. Nilesh Anand Bharne who was SSP Udham Singh Nagar has been transferred to intelligence headquarters, Dehradun. SP Tehri Mukhtar Mohsin has been transferred to police headquarters.
Kirshan Kumar VK, SP police headquarters who recently joined after his Central government deputation tenure ended has been made Garhwal region commandant of State Disaster Response Force (SDRF) battalion.
VKS Karki, SP Vigilance, Dehradun sector has been transferred to Intelligence Headquarters. Ajay Joshi who was deputed as SP of Pauri has been transferred to police headquarters. Rajiv Swaroop who was deputed SP at intelligence headquarters has been made SP, Pauri.
P Renuka Devi who was SDRF battalion commandant has been transferred to police headquarters. Jagat Ram Joshi who was SP Uttarkashi has been made SP, Ardh Kumbh, Haridwar.
Barinderjit Singh, who was SP at Rudraprayag has been made SP Tehri while Nivedita Kukreti who was SP (police headquarters) has been made SP Uttarkashi. Prahlad Narayan Meena who was assistant SP/CO Kotwali, Sadar, Dehradun has been made SP Rudraprayag. Janmejaya Prabhakar Kailash who was Assistant IG, police headquarters, has been made Aide-De-Camp (ADC) to Governor.
This aside, crimes in the Haridwar district are on the spiral. The cases of illegal mining coming to the fore in Udham Singh Nagar have been denting into the images of the ruling party and the cops alike. Things looking grim on the law and order front, the State government have been drawing flak of the Opposition parties as well as the common people.
On the political front too, things are embarrassing for the State police. Recently, BJP MlAs reaching the Chief Minister’s residence known as Bijapur Guest House despite ‘elaborate’ police bandobast to stop them showed chinks in their armory. The Intelligence department is particularly under the line of fire.
“A re-jig was long overdue. Now, we hope the force revamped would prove effective in stamping out crimes and instilling confidence in the scared commoners,” said an observer.